US House Democrats Set Saturday Health Vote, Iron Out Kinks

By Patrick Yoest and Martin Vaughan Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, (D, Md.), announced that, as widely expected, the House will hold a vote this weekend on health-care legislation. Hoyer said "it is our intent" to consider the health-care bill and vote on the measure either Saturday night or Sunday morning. The House would then take a week-long break, Hoyer said. President Barack Obama is expected to meet with House Democrats at 10:30 a.m. on Friday. House Democrats moved closer to ironing out differences among their ranks on how the bill handles access to health-care for illegal immigrants and language intended to block federal funding of abortion. Rep. Diana DeGette, (D, Colo.), said pro-choice Democrats will not oppose a key procedural vote on the bill, if House leaders as expected add language from Rep. Brad Ellsworth, (D, Ill.), aimed at appeasing some anti-abortion members of the Democratic caucus. "The pro-choice caucus is not wild about it, we think this issue had already been resolved by careful negotiations," she said. But DeGette said pro-choice members can stomach the language if it helps leaders secure a few more votes for the health-care measure. "This is a game of inches," she said. Inclusion of the Ellsworth language will likely alienate more anti-abortion Democrats than it appeases. The National Right-to-Life Committee has condemned it as "a political fig leaf made out of cellophane." The provision intends to block federal funds from being used to pay for abortions and guarantee that people would have access to insurance plan in the exchange which doesn't cover abortion. Meanwhile, Congressional Hispanic Caucus members met with Obama Thursday afternoon and laid down a marker on immigration. Rep. Nydia Velasquez, (D, N.Y.), who chairs the group and attended the meeting with Obama, said members of the group would oppose the measure if it was changed to bar illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance from a proposed health insurance "exchange" that the bill would create. "We made it very clear that 20 votes in the Hispanic Caucus will be supportive of the current language in the House version," Velasquez said. "If the language changes, I guess 20 votes will change." The White House supports barring illegal immigrants from the exchange. But House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, (D, N.Y.), told reporters that she was aware of the caucus' threat to vote against the bill if it is changed and said "I don't want that to happen." Rep. Chris Van Hollen, (D, Md.), who has led meetings on the immigration issue, said a final decision has not been made on whether to add any immigration language. "The discussions have been so focused on abortion, there's nothing new" on immigration, Van Hollen said. Finally, a group of liberal Democrats who have been seeking the right to offer an amendment setting up a government single-payer health-care system may have to settle for a separate, lower profile vote on the issue. The single-payer legislation might be brought to the floor as a stand-alone bill in a list of less controversial items, outside of the debate on the main health-care bill. The liberal faction are divided among themselves between those who wanted an amendment and those who fretted that a high-profile vote would reveal meager support for the proposal, according to House Democrats. -By Patrick Yoest, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-3554; patrick.yoest@dowjones.com (Corey Boles contributed to this report)